I must have presented then a ridiculous, sentimental appearance. She laughed the moment she saw me.
“You like our balcony,” she said. And then, as if she had discovered the cause of my seriousness, she added, “also our spring moonlight.”
I nodded.
“It is an unusual spot for the middle of a metropolis,” she went on. “It is filled with a tangle from which years ago I used to imagine fairies and gnomes and Arabian marauders might step at any moment.”
“Tell me more,” said I.
“There was a little basin and fountain there when I was a child. But when it did not flow, yellow slime collected at the bottom, and when the water was turned on and trickled from one basin to another, it gave forth a mournful sound that made one think of deserted villages, and moss growing on gravestones, and courtyards where there were moonlight murders.”
“You have a keen imagination.”
“The keenest!” she exclaimed. “Why not? It has grown up with me. And the only trouble is that it causes me the greatest restlessness. My fate is like all others. I am exactly what I would not be. Sometimes I long to enjoy all the wildest of respectable adventures.”
“I should think you would keep that a secret from the Judge. He, above all, is a man of settled habits. His greatest genius has been to make romance out of the commonplace sequences of life.”
She sprang up and walked to the mantel.